


remain nothing

by novaimperator



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s), i dunno tbh, uMMMmm, uh, whats the lingo these days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-11 18:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novaimperator/pseuds/novaimperator
Summary: A house filled with ghosts is haunted, right? No matter what kind of ghosts they are?If love dies, does it become a ghost, too?





	remain nothing

**Author's Note:**

> (coughs up blood) it's been a while. so i think fp undergoes this sorta burnout but it becomes constant and he sorta loses the ability to feel anything bc it's all so exhausting and he needs the energy left to just go about his responsibilities and eventually he just up and left the elgang bc he couldn't deal with everything and (i fall to my knees, wheezing in pain) also elesis is a really good sister thanks for attending my ted taLK (the screen turns black)

          Dial tones.

          His phone rings.

          “Hello?” he says to the unknown caller.

          Static. Silence. 

          “Um.”

          “…”

          Right before he intends to remove the phone from his ear-

          “Els,” a soft whisper, and he knows exactly who it is. He shuts his eyes, emotion wells in his throat.

          “That’s me,” he replies, just as quiet.

          “…”

          Elsword bites his lip, keeps the tears behind his eyelids. He says nothing. Neither does the other boy. There’s more static from the opposite line as he shifts. Elsword struggles to keep his breathing from killing the quiet. They simply listen to each other’s silence for some time.

          Bursts of air hit the receiver as Chung opens and closes his mouth over and over, searching for words. Elsword can practically see the way his tongue runs along his teeth. It was something he did when he was uncertain. When he was thinking. Finally, he speaks. “The ocean has been calm lately.”

          Elsword nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” Then he hangs up. How lucky it is that he is in Velder now, visiting his sister. When he departs, though he feels guilty about it, he doesn’t leave a note for her. This existed separately-- _ had _ to exist separately--from her and from every single other person in the world. He’s only a couple hours away, he thinks, and his chest tightens. But he does leave his phone in plain sight so she’ll know he hasn’t left yet. He ties his hair up and breathes out deeply. He hopes he’s right.

 

          He arrives at the port of Hamel and realizes he hasn’t been here in years. But his legs still remember the way to his home, walking the winding white streets on autopilot. He wonders if his hair is still as bright as the pretty ribbons lining the pavement. It was once. He wonders where he’s been all this time if not Hamel. Or maybe he had been in Hamel this whole time? It hurts to think that he might have been here alone this whole time, so close but so far from him…

          Climbing the creaky stairs leading to the front porch somehow felt like he was walking even farther from him. No light shines through the crack under the entrance and the shutters are pulled closed. The patio is dusty and wind chimes have rusted. The storm door is latched firmly in place, too. _ Haunted _ is a word that comes to mind. It fits, in a way. A house, assumedly, allegedly, (hopefully) inhabited by a ghost. A phantom. Haunted.

          When he opens the door, he tries as hard as he can to stay silent. He feels that he’s disturbing the dead, that making noise would be sacrilege. He’s sure that Chung hears him, considering his current profession, but he tries regardless. He slowly draws the door shut behind him. It clicks into place and sends its sound ricocheting off the walls. Inside as well dust coats everything and furniture is missing. A human couldn’t have been living here.

          Perhaps he was wrong. But like a prayer he vocalizes a short melody, one Chung would once always sing back to him, one octave lower. It was something they had started as a way to signal to the other back on the battlefield that they needed help, whether it meant give pursuit or come here or anything else. Eventually it came to be a comfort to them both and they used it for everything out of combat.  _ I’m upset _ and  _ where are you? _ and  _ pay attention! _ and  _ don’t go _ and _ I’m glad you’re here _ and _ I love you. _ But only his echo bounces back. He sighs. Either he was here and was choosing not to respond or he wasn’t here at all. Elsword wasn’t sure which possibility he hated more. He decides on exploring the empty rooms, just because. He came all this way, didn’t he? He might as well reminisce.

          Helputt’s room door is cracked ever so slightly. Even from just the sliver of space Elsword can tell it has been untouched all these years. Out of respect, he closes the door and gives it no more consideration.

          The living room and kitchen are barren. He remembers the fluffy beige couch that used to be in the left corner and the dark wood table they ate at, the bookshelves crammed against the right side of the room and family pictures hanging on every wall. He sits back on the brick fireplace and suddenly feels the chill. It’s freezing. He thinks to utilize the fireplace but there’s no fuel, so he just carries a flame in his palm and pretends it’s effective enough.

          After reimagining every possible detail about the entry space, he heads for Chung’s room. It’s warm. To his surprise, it’s just as it was the last time he remembered seeing it. Except-- it’s clean. He extinguishes his fire and walks in, shutting the door behind him, eyes never leaving the area ahead. Everything is immaculate, tidy to a fault; Elsword doesn’t think he’s ever seen the entirety of Chung’s floor before but now he does and he feels like the room doesn’t even belong to that same boy. He looks over his desk, with pen-holders organized by color and stationery piled neatly along the side. The lavender walls are bare; none of the drawings Chung used to have pinned up are present. It looks like a guest room. It doesn’t feel like these were the same walls that bundled his secrets up between Chung and himself in the night or surrounded him the first time he’d kissed him. He runs his fingers along the smooth plaster. The paint, amazingly, hasn’t chipped. He’d helped Chung paint his room. He smiles remembering it. He drops his hand from the wall and looks around some more.

          Eventually he finds the only indication the room belonged to someone: the tiny end table next to his bed with words marked onto its grain, words that he (and Ara and Aisha) had put there, and--

          A picture of he and Chung lays on the tabletop. A small one, the size you could keep in a wallet or something. Delicately, he picks it up, as if it’ll crumble to ash from his fingertips. They’re both grinning at the camera and his arm is wrapped around Chung. They looked about… 14? Six whole years ago.. he shakes his head. He sets the photo back down and runs his thumb across Chung’s image.

          Then he sits down on his bed, gentle as he can manage, and stares at the wall. His hands are interlocked in his lap.

          “I miss you, ya know.” He raises his eyes to the roof and sighs. “I wanted to come ‘n see ya, but I guess you’re not here. Sorry for breaking in, haha.” A flush of embarrassment runs to his face as he realizes what he’s been doing all this time. “I dunno how long I’ve been poking around in here. I dunno how long you’ve been gone, either.” Again he sighs. “I just know I’ve missed you too long for my taste.” And then he doesn’t know what else to say. So he stares at the wall and waits. He waits for some Hamel security sentry to forcibly remove him from the house or for the sun to set or for the wall to display a map to Chung’s exact position or--

          Water is running. It isn’t the sea, because the sound is new and it’s clear and he can hear it over the roar of the waves right outside. Reluctantly, he removes himself from his trance and stands.

          He checks the kitchen, but it’s still uninhabited. So, bravely, he walks right into the bathroom and finds…

          “Chung?”

          The man huddled over the sink straightens up and blinks at him with unfocused eyes. He turns the faucet off and wipes the water from his face with a scarf. “Els.”

          “What are you…?” His voice drops; he doesn’t know what he intended to ask. He tries instead to identify the flood of emotion surging up inside him. He wants to hug him but his hazy blue eyes root him to that spot just outside the doorframe and he can’t move. 

          “You’re here.” His voice is almost as cold as the air itself, quiet as the house.

          “I’m here,” says Elsword weakly. “Have you--have you been here the whole time?”

          “I have.”

          Hurt joins the clusterfuck of feeling whirling through Elsword. “You were-- Wh-- I sang for you! I was in your room whining to the wall for forever! I froze my ass off in the living room! Why didn’t you come ‘n get me? I’m here for you, y’know! Not ‘cause I’m trying to make myself sad wishing you were back and wanting to go back to all the good times we had! I came to find  _ you _ because _ you _ called and I got this gut feeling you were here after you talked about the ocean and--” he takes a deep breath, “The point is, what gives?”

          Chung’s expression remains as it was, just like his room, just like the pitch of his voice lately. “I wanted to see what you would do,” he says.

          “What I’d-- what I’d do! What were you wanting me to do? What were you thinkin’ I was gonna do?”

          He shakes his head. “I’m not sure, exactly. I think,” he starts, carefully considering his words, “I wanted you to say something about being unhappy with me. I think I wanted, expected you to leave as soon as I neglected to respond to you, so that I too could leave.” He purses his lips. “I should have expected this to not go that way, considering you.”

          Those words hit Elsword like bullets. He feels his temper flare like fire, but he tamps the flames as much as he can before he speaks, trying to force himself to understand his feelings. “Is this just some sort of-- closure for you? You didn’t really wanna see me, you just wanted to tie up your loose ends? Is that it?”

          Again his face betrays nothing of his thoughts. But he says no, yet he says nothing else. And again frustration rolls over Elsword.

          “So then why? Why are you here, why did you call, what do you want?” He clenches his fists. “You have to tell me if you want me to know! I don’t know what to do! I would--”  _ do anything for you, _ he thinks, but he forces the words down. That’s over, he reminds himself. They had to remain as nothing now. “Please.”

          Suddenly he looks so timid, so tired, so unhappy. His voice thaws just a little when he says, quiet, “I wanted to hear your voice again. I wanted to talk to someone again. I needed a reminder that life isn’t so bad as it’s felt lately.”

          In that moment, Elsword understands his loneliness. He doesn’t waver or waste time in embracing Chung, embracing the boy he’d been fearing he’d lost and he held him tight in hopes that he could keep him here. He feels, after a moment, Chung’s arms around his waist and his hair against his jaw and he’s really,  _ really _ trying to keep himself together.

          “I wish you would have contacted me,” says Chung, and Elsword squeezes him tighter.

          “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. Since…”

          “I didn’t,” he admits, “Not when prioritizing my obligations, my responsibilities. And you didn’t have any way to, either. But I needed to talk to you. I need to now.”

          This conversation is probably nothing more than an attempt at showing he’s sorry before he doesn’t have the capacity to care anymore, or a final, desperate shot in the dark at trying to revert to a better time, a better person. He knows, deep down, that Chung hardly feels anything anymore, least of all for him as another person because that was the demand of being an assassin, to not care about other humans and their lives because your sole purpose is to take them--

          “I didn’t like killing people. Demons weren’t difficult to kill, being demons, but other people… like you and I.”

          “I didn’t like seein’ you so upset with yourself and everyone and everything else around you. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” he mutters.

          “I don’t want your apologies, Els. You haven’t done anything wrong. There’s a lot I should apologize to you for. But it’s a little late for all of that now.”

          They stop talking for some time.

          Then Chung presses his lips against Elsword’s softly, quickly; a phantom kiss.

          “At least, I hope you know that I never lied to you,” he says.

          Elsword bites back the three words that bubble in his throat and lets them die on his tongue.

          Instead he says, “It sucked doing everything without you. I missed you so much.”

          “I’m sorry.”

          “I’ve already forgiven you, y’know.”

          “I’m sorry. I want to say I missed you too, but I--”

          Elsword pushes him gently just a little more into the crook of his neck to let him know he didn’t need to finish that sentence. He pushes on anyway, knowing he’d get nothing he wanted to hear out of him.

          “It’s okay. It’s-- It’s good enough hearing you talk.”

          Chung says nothing.

          “Sis wanted to know what happened.”

          “I assume you never told her.”

          “Nope.”

          “You’ve been holding everything in, haven’t you?”

          “So have you.”

          “There’s nothing for me to hold in, Els.”

          A sour expression crosses his lips. “It wasn’t always like that,” he whispers. He feels the sorrow in his throat.

          “Not always, no. But it will be now,” Chung says simply.

          Elsword didn’t have any other thoughts he could bring himself to finish in voice. He ran his mouth a lot, but this was different. Anything he said would directly affect the next seconds, minutes, months, decades. Even he had his limits. So he swallows his thoughts of  _ We could’ve worked through this, you didn’t have to do what you did, all you had to do was talk to me, _ and they stand in silence, wrapped around one another. Elsword sways and Chung stays stock-still. He combs his fingers through Chung’s now-darker hair the way he used to like, and Chung clasps his hands around Elsword’s back. The silence suffocates them, but at least they’re together. Even if not for long.

          “Can I still call you my dewdrop?”

          Chung moves with him for just a few beats. He sniffles into Elsword’s neck and tugs at the hem of his shirt. He pulls away for a second, just to take his hair down, meticulous as he’d always been. He takes a deep breath and leans his head on Elsword’s shoulder. Elsword presses his palm to Chung’s cheek and feels his eyelashes against his thumb as his eyes flutter shut, the ghost of tears hovering between the two.

          “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

          Chung falls asleep and Elsword spends the night awake, trying to memorize every single detail he can about him; it hadn’t ever gotten easier to sleep without him and it’d only get harder from here on out because of tonight. So he memorizes the rhythm of his breath and the position of his hands and length of his legs and how his torso curves and he holds him. Eventually he does move them both to Chung’s bed (he knows from experience how uncomfortable of mornings bathroom-floor-sleeping made for), and for once he’s grateful for insomnia and the time it’s given him now. 

          Sometime before noon, he dozes off with Chung still firmly curled into him.

 

          He wakes abruptly, feeling much lighter. His brain immediately screams at him for Chung and he finds the very man, back turned to him, heading for the bedroom door. “Dewdrop,” he murmurs, and even through sleepy eyes he sees his posture relax. He rises and hugs him with sore arms, feeling tears prick at his eyes as soon as he feels Chung’s fingers at the small of his back. And soon both their faces are damp, though they’re wordless and they both pretend their breaths are regular and they’re okay and they’ll still work out. Elsword kisses him, genuinely, hands cupped against wet cheeks, and he makes sure to commit this, too, to his memory. Chung lays little kisses in all the important places; the corners of his eyes, the top of his head, the tip of his nose, his lips. 

          For one final moment his mouth is on his and the next, he’s gone like a ghost in the daylight.

          Elsword stays in his room until evening has long since settled. He kneels on the bed and relives their first and last kisses; how ironic they’d both take place in this very room, this empty room, almost as empty as he felt. He knew he’d have to be functioning by tomorrow, and he knew he wasn’t going to feel this hopeless all the time. But right now it wasn’t tomorrow and right now nothing was worth it. With a cracking voice, he repeats their melody to himself.

          When the sky turns navy, he dries it up. He washes his face, makes the bed without any further display. Right before he’s gathered the strength to leave, he remembers the photo on the end table. He wants to take it with him. There isn’t any reason he should leave it, he decides. So he doesn't.

          Or wouldn't have, if it had been there. The nightstand is bare save for all the writing. So Chung took the photo.

          The fact makes his stomach flip. He took the photo with him.  _ Why? _ he wants to ask, but he thinks he knows the answer already. He smiles, sadly. Wistfully.

          Grabbing a marker from the perfect arrangement along Chung’s desk, he leans over onto the nightstand and adds his words to its surface. _ I love you, _ he writes,  _ dewdrop. _ He scrawls the year in right under it, then leaves the marker on the table. Just as proof he had been there. Then he himself leaves. But he lingers by the shore as long as he can, watching the azure waves, and catches the last ship to Velder. He’s home again somewhat around dawn. Languidly he makes his way up the short cobblestones leading to the door. Unto them he taps the dew from his shoes off and slips out of them as he holds the doorknob.

          Right as he twists the metal he’s yanked forward violently, crashing over the threshold. He picks himself up with a _ harrumph _ and red face to find Elesis looking just as distressed, through she’s considerably less in a heap on the floor. “Els! I was so worried, where’dya go?” she demands.

          Instead of delivering a witty remark about bettering the world with his beauty or a joke about watching cute guys walk by at the mall, he just starts crying. “Els?!” she yelps, dropping to her knees next to him. For a fruitless moment he tries to pretend like he definitely didn’t start sobbing and pushes himself up, only to stumble harder on shaky legs and his sister stares at him with bewilderment. “What happened?”

          He buries his head in folded arms atop his knees, pulled close to his chest, and keeps crying. Gingerly Elesis lays her arm over his shoulders and rubs back and forth. Even without any explanation she seemed to understand, Elsword notices; with further consideration he realizes she probably understood all too well. And he sobs harder. Elesis lets him stay like that for some time.

          Eventually she reaches over and taps under his chin twice, like she would when he was a kid and acting up or not listening. He stares at her with attention through teary eyes. “Let’s go inside.” She offers her hand to him and helps him up. She doesn’t move away to shut the door. He collapses facedown on the nearest surface--the sofa--so Elesis perches herself on its arm. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

          Without lifting his head, he starts to talk.

          “Hey. I can’t hear you,” she says softly, and he props his head up on his elbow. As he speaks, he doesn’t open his eyes.

          “Chung called. Yesterday. Or-- the day before yesterday, I guess.” She stays quiet, prompting him to continue. So he does.

          “He… He was in Hamel. He didn’t tell me that, I mean, I had to figure it out. From him talking about the ocean. So I went to his house--uh, old house.”

          “And he was there?” she asks, trying to keep him talking. She knows he was, and knows also by now the general series of events that transpired between the two. More important than that, though, she knows he needs to talk about this,  _ needs _ to acknowledge its presence in every moment of his life because if he doesn’t he’ll keep pretending its very existence and the pain it brings is pretend. Putting it into the open air made so it couldn’t eat him alive from the inside out.

          He nods. His lip trembles.

          “Then what?” she persists.

          “Then,” he pulls his hair, “then we talked a little and we spent the night together and then-- then he...” His voice as well deserts him. He lays down.

          “Oh, Elsword,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

          “He said he was sorry. He was sorry he couldn’t say he’d missed me.” His voice hitches on  _ say  _ and he wipes his eyes. “He didn’t even say goodbye.” Wryly he chuckles and sits up, hugs a throw pillow to his chest. “He just… kissed me and left.” His fingers run along his lips. “I don’t think he would’ve if I hadn’t woken up. If I’d stayed asleep he woulda just… up and gone. Without a trace. Just like the first time.”

          “It hurt more this time,” he says.

          “Yeah,” Elesis says. “That’d make sense.”

          “I can’t stop thinking about maybe if I had just said something, something different, or if I had done something, or told him I loved him that he would have stayed. And now I’ll never know and I’ll have to live with this, without him forever and ever and ever and maybe I could have changed that and I didn’t because I was too stupid and too afraid and--”

          “Elsword.” Her voice is firm. He quells his words. 

          “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done for him. And I hate sayin’ that, and you’ll hate hearin’ it, but that’s… the truth,” she says gently. “He made up his mind a long time ago. And this is one of those changes you can’t undo. Like you ‘n me.” He stares at her with dark eyes. “The both of us, we changed a lot for magic, for gettin’ what we wanted, didn’t we? So did he. And we can’t just decide to make it all go away, can we? Neither can he,” she elaborates. “Make sense?”

          Elsword looks away. “Yeah, but I wish it didn’t.”

          She smiles, small and sympathetic. “Yeah, I know.”

          Elsword seems to have run out of things to say.

          Elesis gives her brother’s arm a comforting squeeze and gets up. “How ‘bout some hot cocoa?”

          He shakes his head. She frowns. “I’m gonna make you some anyway.” She does so, then plucks the throw pillow out of his grip so she can replace it with the mug. He curls farther into himself, but doesn’t complain. He also doesn’t drink any. His gaze, glassy, is thoroughly fixed on some point in space Elesis can’t identify. “Elsword?”

          He hardly moves as he mumbles, “Yeah?”

          “Is there a reason you didn’t tell me the first time this happened?”

          He blinks. “I dunno.” He frowns like he’s thinking hard then adds, “You already knew, though, right?” She nods. “So it woulda been pointless to tell you.”

          “No, I could’ve helped you.”

          “How? You were havin’ enough trouble taking care of stuff like this for yourself. When Ara…” his voice tapers off as he seems to realize that saying such things was a bad idea.

          “She didn’t leave all of a sudden. We worked it out. That’s way different.” She crouches in front of the couch, leveling herself with her younger brother. “I really wish you woulda let me help you the first go-round. I’m sorry you were alone. But you’re not now, yeah? I’m here and so is everyone else.”

          “Chung isn’t.”

          “But everyone else is,” she says with a matter-of-fact attitude, “me included and you’re gonna get through this.” She tucks his hair behind his ear. “Your heart’s gonna grow back, okay?” Her voice is no longer decisive, just certain. “You just gotta give it what it needs to grow. Stuff like enough food and emotional support and love and acknowledgement. Instead of sunshine and water. You get the picture.” She smiles. “It’ll hurt for a while, but it’ll heal. Just like everything else always has.”

          He breathes out, sits up. He takes a sip of his drink and sighs, long and weary. “It feels like he’s always gonna be with me. It feels like I’m surrounded by ghosts right now.”

          “Ghosts are dead. He’s not dead.”

          “He might as well be. He’s never coming back.”

          “But he isn’t dead, so he’s not a ghost, ya don’t have to let him haunt you.”

          “I can’t help it.”

          “Yeah you can. You just gotta accept them. Let them know you know they’re there and they’ll quit bugging you, ‘cause it’s no fun to mess with people who understand what’s happening. Does that make sense?”

          “It makes sense, I guess?”

          She stands. “The point is, you’re not gonna feel like this forever. You’ll feel better and you’ll learn how to love and live again even after all of this. You just gotta give it time and a tiny bit of effort.” 

          He lays back down, shuts his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He sets his cocoa cup down on the tile with a  _ clink. _

          “Thank you. For everything,” he says.

          She waves him off, “Of course,” she responds. She retrieves the mug and drapes a blanket over him.

          Exhaustion weighs on Elsword’s eyes. Before he drifts off, he takes one long look at the dewy grass drying in the early-morning sun. He calls, “Sis?”

          “Yeah?” He hears her turn the tap off.

          “I love you.”

          Elesis smiles to herself. “Love you too, Els.”

          He’s asleep.

 

          When he wakes, he wakes without the love of his life.

          But when he wakes, he wakes without a sense of nothingness.

**Author's Note:**

> 憂鬱はオレを殺しているww  
> 読んでくれて、ありがとう
> 
>  
> 
> & i was kinda really unhappy with this sry if it sucked  
> i listened to literally only one song the entire time i wrote this


End file.
